Arguably the most influential person on TV (and definitely the richest), talk show queen Oprah Winfrey, despite the fabulous life she leads as one of the more powerful women in the world, still somehow makes her millions of fans feel she's an icon they can get down with, a girlfriend to the nation. Phil Donahue invented the participatory approach to TV talk, but Winfrey brought a woman-to-woman empathy and a flair for self-revelation that he couldn't match, combining compassion, vulnerability and an unashamed expression of emotion to become not only the nation's most popular talk show host, but a cultural taste maker, a force to be reckoned with in her medium and time as Walter Winchell, Ed Sullivan and Walter Cronkite were in theirs. In the words of one television industry analyst, "The rest of the talk shows are just tissue. 'Oprah' is Kleenex." Born to unmarried parents and raised initially by a grandmother on a Mississippi farm with no indoor plumbing, Winfrey was reading the Bible and reciting in church by the time she was three, becoming at the age of 19 Nashville, TN's first female and first black TV-news anchor. But there was the dark side that accompanied the precocity, the sexual abuse she suffered as a child and an eating disorder that she seems finally to have licked (she admitted on-air to once eating a package of hot dog buns drenched in maple syrup). Winfrey learned at her next stop in Baltimore that she lacked the detachment for journalism, crying when a story was sad or laughing when she misread a word, but found herself instead as the host of an early-morning talk show, "People Are Talking". She made the jump to big market Chicago in 1984, hosting the half-hour morning show "A.M. Chicago". Within a year, it had been expanded to one-hour and retitled "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and in September 1986 it was distributed in national syndication. She assumed ownership and production of her show in 1988, making it the cornerstone of her Harpo Productions.
Winfrey expanded her career into acting, receiving an Academy Award nomination for her screen debut as the bossy, abused Sofia in "The Color Purple" (1985) and quickly followed in the character part of the mother of an accused murderer in "Native Son" (1986). She executive produced and starred in the highly-acclaimed TV miniseries "The Women of Brewster Place" (ABC, 1989) and its subsequent short-lived spin-off "Brewster Place" (1990). Both were filmed at her Chicago-based movie studio and TV production complex. She again leant her forceful presence to the role of a Chicago housing project resident determined that her offspring would receive an education in the TV-movie "There Are No Children Here" (ABC, 1993).
Following a two-year ratings slide, she cleaned up her format that once strayed into the same trashy realms as her dubious competitors, stabilized her core audience and began championing literacy (and book sales) with "Oprah's Book Club", the popular once-a-month feature of her talk show. "I won't have people yelling and screaming and trying to humiliate one another," she said, recalling the time when a husband announced to his unsuspecting wife--and to an unsuspecting Oprah--that he was not only still involved with his mistress but that she was carrying his child. "That was one hard moment. I wouldn't do that (intentionally) to anybody." At the start of her 13th season in 1998, she launched "change your life television", featuring self-help segments led by John Gray, Suze Ormond and others, as well as a daily piece on getting in touch with one's spirit--however an individual defined it.
Winfrey increased her commitment to production, signing deals with ABC and Disney. The first fruits of the ABC deal (under the banner "Oprah Winfrey Presents") were "Before Women Had Wings" (1997), a well-received TV-movie starring Winfrey as a woman who gives refuge to a child fleeing an alcoholic home, and the 1998 miniseries "The Wedding", about an affluent black family living on Martha's Vineyard, based on Dorothy West's novel. For the 1998-99 season, Winfrey executive produced a small screen remake of "David and Lisa", featuring Sidney Poitier, and "Tuesdays with Morrie", from the acclaimed memoir. As part of her deal with Disney, she finally realized a long-held dream of starring in a film adaptation of Toni Morrison's Pulitzer-winning novel "Beloved" (1998). Under the sensitive guidance of Jonathan Demme, Winfrey portrayed an escaped slave haunted by the ghost of the child she murdered.
Winfrey intends for her films to entertain while engaging the heart, lifting the spirit and stimulating the mind, a mission that is in keeping with her revamped talk show. She occupies the high ground, exhorting her viewers to improve their lives and the world. Winfrey's genius (and her legacy) is that she makes people care because she cares. Perhaps Phil Donahue said it best. "More than a great star, you are a 20th Century political figure. Your good works have touched us all."
In 2002, Oprah lauched her own magazine, O, which she touted as being "the women's personal growth guide for the new century." It features Oprah on every cover. She also helped jumpstart the television career of self-help guru Dr. Phil McGraw, whose popular appearances on her talk show beginning in 1998 led to McGraw's own highly rated syndicated daytime chat fest "Dr. Phil" (2002 - ), and she also served as the producer of a series featuring popular chef Rachael Ray (planned for 2006). As a producer of TV movies Winfrey continued to lure top-name talent to her projects, with Elizabeth Shue headline "Amy & Isabelle" (2001) and Halle Berry anchoring the lavish production of "Their Eyes Were Watching God" (2005). In 2006 she also added Broadway producer to her resume, bringing a stage version of the film "The Color Purple" to the Great White Way.
